"Hearn,.Lian.-.Otori.03.-.Brilliance.Of.The.Moon" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hearn Lian)

last meeting rose in my mind. I wished I had said more to him, told him of my
gratitude and my respect. I wondered how he had died, if his death had been
humiliating and agonizing. I longed for the dead eyes to open, the bloodless
lips to speak. How irretrievable the dead are, how completely they go from us!
Even when their spirits return, they do not speak of their own deaths.
I was born and raised among the Hidden, who believe that only those who follow
the commandments of the Secret God will meet again in the afterlife. Everyone
else will be consumed in the fires of hell. I did not know if my adopted father
Shigeru had been a believer, but he was familiar with all the teachings of the
Hidden and spoke their prayers at the moment of his death, along with the name
of the Enlightened One. Ichiro, his adviser and the steward of his household,
had never given any such signЧin fact, rather the opposite: Ichiro had suspected
from the start that Shigeru had rescued me from
the warlord Iida SadamuТs persecution of the Hidden, and had watched me like a
cormorant for anything that might give me away.
But I no longer followed the teachings of my childhood, and I could not believe
that a man of IchiroТs integrity and loyalty was in hell. Far stronger was my
outrage at the injustice of this murder and my realization that I now had
another death to avenge.
УThey paid for it with their lives,Ф Kaede said. УWhy kill an old man and go to
all that trouble to bring his head to you?Ф She washed away the last traces of
blood and wrapped a clean white cloth around the head.
УI imagine the Otori lords want to draw me out,Ф I replied. УThey would prefer
not to attack Terayama; they will run into AraiТs soldiers if they do. They must
hope to entice me over the border and meet me there,Ф I longed for such a
meeting, to punish them once and for all. The warriorsТ deaths had temporarily
assuaged my fury, but I could feel it simmering in my heart. However, I had to
be patient; my strategy was first to withdraw to Maruyama and build up my forces
there. I would not be dissuaded from that.
I touched my brow to the grass, bidding my teacher good-bye. Manami came from
the guest rooms and knelt a little way behind us.
УIТve brought the box, lady,Ф she whispered.
УGive it to me,Ф Kaede replied. It was a small container woven from willow twigs
and strips of red-dyed leather. She took it and opened it. The smell of aloes
rose from it. She put the white wrapped bundle inside and arranged the aloes
round it. Then she placed the box on the ground in front of her, and the three
of us bowed again before it.
A bush warbler called its spring song and a cuckoo responded from deep in the
forest, the first I had heard that year.
We held the funeral rites the following day and buried the head next to
ShigeruТs grave. I made arrangements for another stone to be
erected for Ichiro. I longed to know what had happened to the old woman, Chiyo,
and the rest of the household at Hagi. I was tormented by the thought that the
house no longer existed, that it would have been burned: the tea room, the upper
room where we had so often sat looking out onto the garden, the nightingale
floor, all destroyed, their song silenced forever. I wanted to rush to Hagi to
claim my inheritance before it was taken from me. But I knew this was exactly
what the Otori hoped I would do
Five farmers died outright and two died later from their wounds. We buried them
in the temple graveyard. Two of the horses were badly hurt, and Amano had them